A reliable internet connection is a bare basic necessity no matter where you go, but even today there are parts of the world where Internet connectivity is unavailable. In the rural areas or in the remote parts of the country that are outside the service range of mainstream internet vendors, connectivity is slow and sometimes even nonexistent. Ground-based internet services fail to cover these areas. But mercifully one does not have to be disconnected from civilization, should they find themselves in those places. For those far and away places, there is satellite internet. If the term is new to you, then you’d be interested in the following.
Satellite internet is the same as normal internet, only wireless. A sci-fi way of describing it would be broadband from space. Getting more real, it’s broadband that is streamed wirelessly from the satellites that are put in space to orbit the Earth. Although the technologies are vastly different, the satellite internet service is just as high-speed and reliable as land-based internet. As of 2022, Viasat and HughestNet are the two providers in this space and now Starlink from SpaceX has joined the fray with its high-speed, low-latency satellite broadband. Amazon is soon to follow with Project Kuiper, it’s own satellite internet service.
If you’re interested to read more about satellite internet and learn how it works going into the technical side of things, there is a resourceful read by Orhan Ergun. Orhan is a network architect and a Field Day delegate. In his article titled “How Does Satellite Internet Work?”, he covers the technical aspects of satellite internet including latency and satellites. He writes-
The orbiting satellite transmits and receives its information to a location on Earth called the Network Operations Center (NOC). NOC is connected to the Internet so all communications made from the customer location (satellite dish) to the orbiting satellite will flow through the NOC before they reached the Internet and the return traffic from the Internet to the user will follow the same path.
To know more about satellite internet, read the rest of Orhan’s blog- “How Does Satellite Internet Work?”.
